Rise-and-fall
pendant lights on long flex from Holloways of Ludlow emphasise the
double-height ceiling. A 'suspended' floor above contains bedrooms
and a study

'Something new and colourful is what I thought I'd
do,' says interior designer Gytha Nuttall of the
decoration of her converted nineteenth-century schoolhouse
in Battersea. 'But as the project developed, slowly I returned to
all the muddy colours I love best.'

The sludgy tones work for Gytha, who with her
property-developer husband Jean Michel Bouchon discovered the
apartment while renting the flat next door. Along with their
three-year-old son Eric, they were dividing their time between
London and their chalet in Gstaad when the flat came up for sale.
'It was an office,' she explains, 'with strange kitchens and
bathrooms, and a huge central staircase - so nowhere did you get
the feeling of double height or see the spectacular
views.'

'Of course, choosing paint and fabric is fun, but it's making
the space right is the part of my job that I absolutely love'

She decided to completely clear the space and start
from scratch. 'That's the part of my job I like
the best,' she says. 'Of course, choosing paint and fabric is fun,
but it's making the space right that I absolutely adore. I
probably should have studied architecture.'

In the sitting
room, traditional portraits arranged around a Louis XIV commode
contrast with the lofty feel of the space.

Instead, Gytha's education included a year studying
economics, which she recalls was 'like trying to learn Chinese'.
More satisfying was her time learning about furniture and antiques
at Sotheby's. 'All our teachers were experts on Antiques Roadshow,'
she recalls. This was followed by a course at the Inchbald School
of Design: 'My first
project was to design a glass chalet.' She went on to work with
Sally Metcalfe at George Spencer Designs for three years, before
taking the plunge and setting up Nuttall Home in 2000.

Building is in Gytha's genes. In 1865, her
great-grandfatherJames Nuttall founded a construction company that
later became BAM Nuttall; its projects included building the
Queensway Tunnel under the Mersey and Britain's first skyscraper,
the Royal Liver Building in Liverpool. 'So what I do now is not
completely out of the blue,' says Gytha, who is fearless when it
comes to structural design. She built their chalet in Gstaad from
scratch and many of her projects are total remodels. 'If you use a
great structural engineer, pretty much anything's possible. You've
just got to think outside the box.'

For her south-London apartment, she
put theory into practice and found imaginative ways to maximise the
floor space. She wanted to retain the impact of the double-height
ceilings on entering the apartment, while creating a comfortable
three-bedroom family home. Her solution was to create a
Russian-doll effect by creating a flat within a
flat.

While you walk into the vast, full-height sitting
room, a cantilevered box containing two bedrooms, a bathroom and
Gytha's denim-lined office hangs above - cutting into the
double-height of the adjoining main bedroom on one side and the
granite-surfaced kitchen on the other. The 'suspended' floor is
accessed via a hidden staircase that emerges into a walkway, which
is like a minstrel's gallery, overlooking the sitting room. 'It
adds an element of mystery,' says Gytha, 'and it gives my son Eric
the most fantastic stage to put on plays.'

Just inside
the front door, an antique gilded mirror and mahogany console set
the mood of the interiors

From the kitchen windows, the eye wanders merrily across
London's chimney pots all the way to the cloud-slicing Shard

The upstairs rooms are fitted with
floor-to-ceiling internal windows overlooking the lower floor,
which introduce light and add a sense of height. Despite her
classical aesthetic, Gytha has incorporated more modern touches in
the flat. She opted against cornicing in favour of a cleaner finish
and enhanced the New York loft effect by painting all the window
frames dark brown.

'This flat is really all about the
windows,' she explains. 'It's our one architectural feature, so I
wanted them to really sing for their supper.' The dark paint was
met with some resistance from Gytha's perplexed builders, but the
effect is that each of the views are framed like a tableau. From
the kitchen windows, the eye wanders merrily across London's
chimney pots all the way to the cloud-slicing Shard.

Where possible, Gytha has avoided using paint. 'I
don't really like paint,' she says. 'It gives no depth and with
dogs, children and suitcases up and down the stairs, it's scuffed
almost the minute you move in.' Instead, Eric's bathroom features
tiles hand painted

with tiny mice by Gytha's cousin,
the ceramic artist Beatrice von Preussen, a linen-effect wallpaper
by Flamant has been used in the main bedroom and there are
polished-plaster walls in the sitting room. 'It never scuffs, gives
the walls depth and at night - with low light - it's just magical.
I'm an anti-spotlight person.'

A
zebra-skin storage box adds interest at the foot of the bed in the
spare room, which looks down to the kitchen

Most of the furniture came from
Gytha and Jean Michel's previous homes. 'I can't be precious,' she
says, 'Eric rides his bike round the sitting room, not always
negotiating the furniture.' The oval dining table in the kitchen is
an antique - 'it's nice and wide, so I can decorate it with flowers
down the middle' - and the portrait of her grandmother,
Gytha's namesake, that hangs in the sitting room was a present from
her father. There are sofas and chairs here that are
Gytha's own designs, some of which are upholstered in grey cashmere
by Loro Piana. 'I like down-filled cushions in armchairs and
sofas,' she says. 'I don't mind plumping, because everything that's
nice in life takes a bit of work, doesn't it?'

A walkway
above the sitting room leads to the nursery and Gytha's office,
where a vintage Haddon rocking horse sits on the landing

Having moved in just over a year
ago, Gytha has sparingly added pops of colour to her many shades of
grey: from the pink toile de Jouy plates that are wall-mounted in
the kitchen and a red headboard in the main bedroom to a green
ceiling in the sitting room.

'It just wouldn't have been me if it
had big, bold colour everywhere,' she says. 'And as I always say to
my clients, "Your house should be an extension of
yourself."' Despite her original intention
to be brave with colour with this flat, Gytha has returned to her
favourite subtle palette. It is a tried-and-tested backdrop for her
brightly tinctured family.